Ministro dos Transportes e Comunicações, Mateus Magala, a margem do encontro reflexão sobre adopção de energias limpas para os transportes em Moçambique.
Maputo, 11 Nov (AIM) – The Mozambican government has finally admitted that Internet access was restricted in order “to avoid the destruction of the country”, in the words of the Minister of Transport and Communications, Mateus Magala.
But Magala avoided responsibility for giving the order for the Internet blackout, shifting blame onto the shoulders of the Internet service providers.
Cited in Monday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”, Magala claimed that the companies, when they note misuse of their services, can take the initiative of interrupting the services, as part of their “civil responsibility” to safeguard “the stability and welfare of the population”.
The companies “have to operate in a climate of security, but it is also the civil responsibility of the operators when they see that the Internet is being used to destroy the country”, said Magala. “So they themselves took measures to prevent the Internet, which is a collective good, and not an evil, from being used to destroy the country”.
Magala was thus claiming that Internet access was to blame for the violent demonstrations on the streets of Maputo and other Mozambican cities, since the announcement on 24 October of preliminary election results widely believed to be fraudulent, as if rioters needed instructions from the Internet before throwing stones at the police.
The Internet shutdown has been haphazard. Only some Internet services have been affected, and only in some parts of the country. The shutdown certainly did not stop thousands of demonstrators from clashing violently with the police in Maputo last Thursday.
There is no doubt that fugitive opposition leader Venancio Mondlane uses the Internet to spread his message and mobilise his followers. But the Facebook page he uses has so far not been shut down, and it is an easy matter to listen to Mondlane’s broadcasts on YouTube.
The Internet shutdown affects people who have nothing to do with the demonstrations, but require Internet access for work or academic purposes or for merely personal communication,
“When we have violations that put in danger the integrity of Mozambicans, we have to act so that our means of communication are not used to destroy the country”, said Magala.
The Minister was speaking to reporters at the border post of Ressano Garcia, on the frontier with South Africa, assessing the damage caused by the demonstrations, which forced a complete closure of the border post for two days last week.
He said that traffic across the border is now resuming in strength, and he thought that by Monday the number of trucks entering and leaving the port of Maputo would reach a thousand a day. Many of these trucks are carrying minerals from South Africa.
(AIM)
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